The role of handbooks in knowledge creation and diffusion: A case of science and technology studies

Genre is considered to be an important element in scholarly communication and in the practice of scientific disciplines. However, scientometric studies have typically focused on a single genre, the journal article. The goal of this study is to understand the role that handbooks play in knowledge creation and diffusion and their relationship with the genre of journal articles, particularly in highly interdisciplinary and emergent social science and humanities disciplines. To shed light on these questions we focused on handbooks and journal articles published over the last four decades belonging to the research area of science and technology studies (STS), broadly defined. To get a detailed picture we used the full-text of five handbooks (500,000 words) and a well-defined set of 11,700 STS articles. We confirmed the methodological split of STS into qualitative and quantitative (scientometric) approaches. Even when the two traditions explore similar topics (e.g., science and gender) they approach them from different starting points. The change in cognitive foci in both handbooks and articles partially reflects the changing trends in STS research, often driven by technology. Using text similarity measures we found that, in the case of STS, handbooks play no special role in either focusing the research efforts or marking their decline. In general, they do not represent the summaries of research directions that have emerged since the previous edition of the handbook.     

How important is software to library and information science research? A content analysis of full-text publications

We investigate the contributions of scientific software to library and information science (LIS) research using a sample of 572 English language articles published in 13 journals in 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017. In particular, we examine the use and citation of software freely available for academic use in the LIS literature; we also explore the extent to which researchers follow software citation instructions provided by software developers. Twenty-seven percent of the LIS journal articles in our sample explicitly mention and use software. Yet although LIS researchers are becoming increasingly reliant on software that is freely available for academic use, many still fail to include formal citations of such software in their publications. We also find that a substantial proportion of researchers, when documenting software use, do not cite the software in the manner recommended by its developers.     

Does Mendeley provide evidence of the educational value of journal articles?

Research articles seem to have direct value for students in some subject areas, even though scholars may be their target audience. If this can be proven to be true, then subject areas with this type of educational impact could justify claims for enhanced funding. To seek evidence of disciplinary differences in the direct educational uptake of journal articles, but ignoring books, conference papers, and other scholarly outputs, this paper assesses the total number and proportions of student readers of academic articles in Mendeley across 12 different subjects. The results suggest that whilst few students read mathematics research articles, in other areas, the number of student readers is broadly proportional to the number of research readers. Although the differences in the average numbers of undergraduate readers of articles varies by up to 50 times between subjects, this could be explained by the differing levels of uptake of Mendeley rather than the differing educational value of disciplinary research. Overall, then, the results do not support the claim that journal articles in some areas have substantially more educational value than average for academia, compared with their research value.     

Globalization and the Internationalization of Legal Education in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography

Globalization and its influence on legal education is a topic of growing interest to the legal profession and to legal educators alike. The first articles on the subject appeared in the mid-1990s, and the frequency of publications has been increasing ever since. This bibliography provides annotations to English-language law journal articles published between 1995 and 2008 that focus on the impact of globalization on legal education in the United States.     

Print versus electronic journals: a preliminary investigation into the effect of journal format on research processes

Purpose: To begin investigating the impact of electronic journals on research processes such as information seeking, the authors conducted a pilot journal-use study to test the hypothesis that patrons use print and electronic journals differently.Methodology: We placed fifteen high-use print titles also available in electronic format behind the circulation desk; patrons were asked to complete a survey upon requesting a journal. We also conducted a parallel survey of patrons using library computers. Both surveys asked patrons to identify themselves by user category and queried them about their journal use.Results: During the month-long study, patrons completed sixty-nine surveys of electronic and ninety surveys of print journal use. Results analysis indicated that fellows, students, and residents preferred electronic journals, and faculty preferred print journals. Patrons used print journals for reading articles and scanning contents; they employed electronic journals for printing articles and checking references. Users considered electronic journals easier to access and search than print journals; however, they reported that print journals had higher quality text and figures.Discussion/Conclusion: This study is an introductory step in examining how electronic journals affect research processes. Our data revealed that there were distinct preferences in format among categories. In addition to collection management implications for libraries, these data also have implications for publishers and educators; current electronic formats do not facilitate all types of uses and thus may be changing learning patterns as well.     

Library and Information Services in Pakistan:A Review of Articles Published in Foreign Journals

The paper presents a statistical and subjective review of the journal articles on various aspects of library and information services in Pakistan. Only the articles published in the journals outside Pakistan are included. Articles are selected from four abstracting services, i.e. LISA, ISA, LSA, and ERIC. Authorship characteristics of 97 articles are analysed and compared with the previous studies of LIS periodicals. Authorship details include collaboration, occupation, affiliation, and the author's country. Other publication details of the articles include year, language, journal, and the country of publication. The findings show that library science teachers write more than the other professionals and the most popular subject is the library and information science education. Library science faculty at Karachi University contributes more articles in international journals. The articles are mostly published in English language journals and in English speaking countries, i.e. UK and USA.International Information and Library Reviewpublished more articles on this topic. Problems in library research in Pakistan are discussed and recommendations are made. A brief review of the articles is given according to 16 major subjects. A bibliography of the articles reviewed is also compiled.     

Article’s scientific prestige: Measuring the impact of individual articles in the web of science

We performed a citation analysis on the Web of Science publications consisting of more than 63 million articles and over a billion citations on 254 subjects from 1981 to 2020. We proposed the Article’s Scientific Prestige (ASP) metric and compared this metric to number of citations (#Cit) and journal grade in measuring the scientific impact of individual articles in the large-scale hierarchical and multi-disciplined citation network. In contrast to #Cit, ASP, that is computed based on the eigenvector centrality, considers both direct and indirect citations, and provides steady-state evaluation cross different disciplines. We found that ASP and #Cit are not aligned for most articles, with a growing mismatch amongst the less cited articles. While both metrics are reliable for evaluating the prestige of articles such as Nobel Prize winning articles, ASP tends to provide more persuasive rankings than #Cit when the articles are not highly cited. The journal grade, that is eventually determined by a few highly cited articles, is unable to properly reflect the scientific impact of individual articles. The number of references and coauthors are less relevant to scientific impact, but subjects do make a difference.     

Promotion of research articles to the lay press: a summary of a three‐year project

The promotion of scholarly journal articles to journalists and bloggers via the dissemination of press releases generates a positive impact on the number of citations that publicized journal articles receive. Research by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. shows that article‐level publicity efforts and media coverage boosts downloads by an average of 1.8 times and were found to increase citations by as much as 2.0–2.2 times in the articles analyzed in this study. We evaluated scholarly journal articles published in nearly 100 Wiley journals, which were also covered in 296 press releases. The results in this case study suggest a need for greater investment in media support for scholarly journals publishing research that sparks interest to a broad news audience, as it could increase citations.     

A citation analysis of the quantitative/qualitative methods debate's reflection in sociology research: Implications for library collection development

This study examines how the social sciences' debate between qualitative and quantitative methods is reflected in the citation patterns of sociology journal articles. Citation analysis revealed that quantitative articles were more likely to cite journal articles than monographs, while qualitative articles were more likely to cite monographs than journals. Quantitative articles cited other articles from their own quantitative-dominated journals but virtually excluded citations to articles from qualitative journals, while qualitative articles cited articles from the quantitative-dominated journals as well as their own qualitative-specialized journals. Discussion and conclusions include this study's implications for library collection development.     

普通高校理工学报防止优质稿件流失的若干措施

针对普通工科高校学报优质稿件外流的问题,提出了一些切实可行的措施,即:高水平的稿件免费优先发表;对青年教师的研究成果千方百计地大力扶持,使其达到发表要求;开拓校外优质稿源,同时出台一些政策保证校内高水平稿件不外投.这些措施的实行,有效地丰富了优质稿源,提高了学报的知名度.     

Open archives and their impact on journal cancellations

We report on a research study commissioned by ALPSP into the factors affecting journal cancellations and, in particular, on the impact of the free availability of journal articles via open access repositories.     

签订《论文发表协议书》的做法好——兼议期刊专有出版权

《著作权法》没有授予期刊社专有出版权,这不利于对期刊社合法权益的保护。期刊社通过与作者签订《论文发表协议书》的方法,明确双方的权利、义务及责任,获得专有出版权,对双方利益的实现都有利无害,因此值得推广。     

国内少儿图书馆1979—2007年期刊论文发表特点研究

对国内少儿图书馆从业人员在1979—2007年间发表的专业期刊论文进行分析,发现以下特点：①内容丰富,实用性强,但对学科前沿关注较弱;②人均发文量显著增长,但核心作者人才流失严重,合作研究少;③单位和个体的发文状况关系密切;④论文发表期刊的选择趋向成熟。     

国外撤销论文研究综述

以国外撤销论文的相关研究为基础,从定性与定量研究、医学与非医学数据库研究、撤销原因、撤销论文的引用情况等几个方面对前人研究成果进行梳理总结,概述撤销论文的研究现状,以期对我国科研管理、期刊管理、科研评价以及遏制学术不端行为等方面政策的制订提供参考。     

Variations in article seeking and reading patterns of academics: What makes a difference?

Although scholarly articles play an important role in the work life of academics, specific patterns of seeking and reading scholarly articles vary. Subject discipline of the reader influences many patterns, including amount of reading, format of reading, and average time spent per reading. Faculty members in different disciplines exhibit quite distinct patterns of reading. Medical/health faculty read more than others and mainly for current awareness purposes, while engineering faculty spend more time on average per article reading, and they also read more for research. Other factors that influence some reading patterns include work responsibilities (weighted towards more teaching or more research), age (young faculty are more likely to read on-screen from the open Web) and productivity of the reader, and purpose of the reading (readings for research and writing are more likely to be from a library collection). The ability to predict scholarly article seeking and reading patterns will assist journal editors, publishers, and librarians design better, more targeted journal systems and services.     

Sci-Hub: What Librarians Should Know and Do about Article Piracy

The high cost of journal articles has driven many researchers to turn to a new way of getting access: “pirate” article sites. Sci-Hub, the largest and best known of these sites, currently offers instant access to more than 58 million journal articles. Users attracted by the ease of use and breadth of the collection may not realize that these articles are often obtained using stolen credentials and downloading them may be illegal. This article will briefly describe Sci-Hub and how it works, the legal and ethical issues it raises, and the problems it may cause for librarians. Librarians should be aware of Sci-Hub and the ways it may change their patrons’ expectations. They should also understand the risks Sci-Hub can pose to their patrons and their institutions.